What renews your spirit?

It’s easy to get lost in the monotony of day to day life, to be focused on the many things that need doing each day. This has perhaps especially been the case in 2020, when so many of our normal routines and rituals have been so dramatically changed.

A question I have frequently asked to clients struggling with adjustments to home working, to limited social contact, to fewer places to go and the many other issues arising from the coronavirus pandemic is ‘what makes your heart sing?’

It’s a question that often evokes a smile, that metaphor of a heart singing is an uplifting and powerful one. It’s also a question that often delivers answers that are not complex or sophisticated. A walk in nature. Making music. Baking. Drawing. Playing with my children. I have heard many different takes on what leaves people singing inside.

This question really is asking what it is that uplifts and renews the spirit. It asks what sets you free? What causes you to feel most who you are, to be close to yourself? These are all different ways of asking the same thing, and its a powerful enquiry to make.

I have a list up in my kitchen of things that make my heart sing. It might sound odd to list them, but sometimes it’s easy to forget amidst the day to day dramas of spilt milk, fractious children, worries about relatives and the million other things that can impact our sense of calm. In those moments it’s not so simple to access what will most help, and so I have it there, ready made, a reminder of the many things that lift me and make me smile.

So what makes your heart sing? And of those things, which are you going to do today?